


Scars - Neville Longbottom

by orphan_account



Series: Scars [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Post-War, howarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-16
Updated: 2011-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has scars from the war. Some are emotional scars, heavy burdens and regrets, and others are physical, deep gash marks and half healed burns. But everyone has scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars - Neville Longbottom

Neville thinks it's strange that he isn't frightened of his scars. Ginny, who has become like his sister over this last year, is terrified of hers. They both have the same criss-cross lines on their backs, and Neville has two identical white lines, marked by fire, that travel down the side of his face.

He also thinks it's strange that he has so few. Just the crossed lines on his back and the fire marked ones on his face. He isn't marked forever like Lavender or Bill. His hands aren't etched with words like Harry's and Ginny's are. Neville is strangely whole, without haunted eyes, and he doesn't wake up with nightmares like the others do.

It's only when he and Hannah talk, sharing stories, that he realizes why the war hasn't marked him like everyone else. Neville is already marked, already scarred, in a way that most people don't know or care about.

So when Hannah teasingly asks him about war scars to impress the girls, Neville only traces one hand over her late mother's pearls and shows her a picture of him. It is of him and his parents, young and unharmed, for the entire world looking like any other family on a stuffy old couch. His father has one arm slung around him; his mother keeps laughing and blowing kisses, and he sits in the middle, grinning at the camera. Hannah looks up at him, tears shining in her eyes. She understands. She doesn't have any war scars either.

Neville touches her hand and whispers, "Not all scars can be seen."


End file.
